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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This Business of Living,
This review is from: The Fire Within [VHS] (VHS Tape)
How is it that this video has slipped out of print? I agree with much of what the other reviewers have written but think they dismiss the Ronet character's position a tad too lightly. Ronet is undoubtedly an aging dilettante who refuses to grow up, to make a meaningful connection with the "real world". But he is also a very lucid witness to the self delusions and shattering compromises his friends make to stay in the world. After all when he visits his friends to say goodbye and to look for a reason to live he is confronted by one friend burying himself in family life and arcane studies, another is taking drugs, another is a terrorist...none are really viable options to a guy who for whatever reasons has his eyes too wide open. That is what is so chilling about the movie, Ronet has woken from the dream of life to a quiet lucidity that is simply unbearable. Reading "Malle on Malle" and his take on the film, one learns that Malle has a far more ambigious view of the suicide than most of the critics one finds here. He doesn't romanticize the suicide, but he does brutally examine how one can run out of ground to stand on until suicide may be the only method of retaining a dollop of dignity. And yes the Satie music here is perfect.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Devastating drama --a cry of despair,
By George Fabian (Mountainside, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Fire Within [VHS] (VHS Tape)
31/2 stars. The Fire Within follows the last days and hours of a bon vivant who has just been cured of alcoholism. Yet he does not want to leave the sanitarium as he is afraid of himself and of life.He decides to spend the short time he has left visiting old friends one of whom might give him a reason for not taking his own life. The Fire Within moves grimly towards its predestined, shattering climax. Malle uses the melancholy piano music of Erik Satie to great effect. Not recommended to aficionados of Pollyanna.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Tortured Soul,
By
This review is from: The Fire Within [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Alain Leroy and his American wife went to live in New York. She stayed behind while he left for France. Alain had a drinking problem and his wife was not going to stand for it. When he returns to France Alain has himself checked into a clinic where he tries to overcome his drinking problems in the hopes he and his wife will get back together.
On this long day's journey into night Alain meets up with old friends and old flames. Once considered a playboy, he no longers has the appeal of a younger man, despite being only 30. The alcohol has taken its effect on him. Practically forced to leave the clinic, since his doctor feels he is all better and eventually must face the outside world, Alain becomes a lost soul desperately trying to reach out to someone. He says he is incapable to love but really that is exactly what Alain needs. Maybe the Beatles had it right when they said, "all you need is love". Alain is played by Maurice Ronet, who had worked with director Louis Malle before, in one of Malle's other masterpieces, "Elevator to the Gallows". Ronet may give one of his finest performances ever (he was also in "Purple Noon" and Chabrol's "The Unfaithful Wife). The look on his face as he struggles with the inner demons on his face is so realistic, that anyone who has ever had a battle with the bottle will instantly recall. Constantly put in situations where people are drinking we can see Alain going back in his memory remembering what various drinks taste like. It's the same thing non-smokers tell me when they see me smoke. They just want to be in the same room with you and catch a whiff. Alcoholics go through the same thing. We remember how good that vodka or beer tasted. Our mouths begin to water. All the while Alain contemplates suicide. Life has lost its purpose. He can't face these demons alone. He needs the love of his wife. Director Malle is someone I've always felt never forces his style on a film. By that I mean he allows the story to dicate where it should go. Watch "Pretty Baby", "Atlantic City", "Murmur of the Heart", "My Dinner with Andre" each one of those films has a different feel to them. This is not to suggest Malle doesn't have his own style, he does. But he tries to adapt so it blends in with the story. We see that with this film as well. "The Fire Within" is a piercing look at loneliness and desperation. I was able to relate to it more than I'd like to admit. It one of the most remarkable films I have ever seen. It seems to know its characters so well. The film is so dead on in its presentation of emotions one has to be not only heartless and lifeless as well not to find a connection. I'd also like to give brief mention to the wonderful music score by Eric Satie which is used in the film and the cinematography by Ghislain Cloquet, whose work includes "Au hasard Balthazar", "The Young Girls of Rochefort" and Polanski's "Tess". Both the music and the camera work add to the film's overall intimate tone. Bottom-line: One of Louis Malle's best films depsite its lack of popularity. A piercing look at loneliness and desperation, subjects the film seems to know all too well.
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